Jason Del Rey, a journalist at Fortune, no longer believes in the glitter of Figure AI. The startup, which develops humanoid robots and has raised millions of dollars for this purpose (from OpenAI, Microsoft, Nvidia, and even Jeff Bezos), signed a contract with BMW last year to invite a fleet of bipeds into its factories. In South Carolina, in the United States, the German automaker would not use these metallic employees in the proportions it announced jointly with Figure AI in January 2024.
Rather than a fleet of humanoid robots working on end-to-end operations for BMW, the South Carolina site would employ only a single biped for much more specific tasks, and outside of employees' working hours. The latter would only be responsible for "practicing picking up and placing parts in the factory's body shop" until last March. Yet, last February, Figure AI boss Brett Adcock was still boasting about his “fleet” of humanoid robots in a LinkedIn post.
At the time, the boss pointed out that a commercial contract with BMW had been signed a year earlier, although neither the financial terms nor the duration of the agreement have been made public since. In March, Brett Adcock repeated the story at a conference, stating that Figure AI's robots were "now in daily use." This discrepancy in discourse alerted the American media, and journalist Jason Del Rey discussed this with BMW spokesperson Steve Wilson. He pointed out that it was unclear whether Figure AI provided several humanoid robots that took turns, or whether there was only one biped. For the occasion, the BMW spokesperson nevertheless stated that "very soon," Figure AI's humanoid robot will begin working alongside BMW employees, "loading parts." No specific date has been provided, however. The number of robots will increase to two, with one biped dedicated to picking "parts with both hands from a logistics container and placing them on a support," while another "will begin welding the parts together" in a confined cell. Tasks still limited compared to the "end-to-end operations" proposed by Brett Adcock last year.
Update on the situation in May
On Monday, March 31, Figure AI's communication campaign with BMW resumed with the publication of a promotional video for the humanoid robots. The advert was again criticized by Fortune for its lack of detail on the robots' operation and role. From one sequence to the next, this video nevertheless allowed us to realize "the minor role" played by Figure AI in an already "highly automated" factory. It also showed a second, motionless humanoid robot, placed alongside the one carrying out the welding tasks, whose role was not specified by BMW. Figure AI reportedly did not respond to requests for questions.
BMW plans to hold a special press conference in May to answer questions and reveal more details about its collaboration with Figure AI, spokesperson Steve Wilson told Fortune.
Meanwhile, Figure AI is focusing on artificial intelligence and the quest for greater independence. A year after announcing that its teams were working with OpenAI, the startup announced the end of its collaboration and the development of its own internal models. At that time, Brett Adock attracted media attention by announcing that Figure AI would show "something no one has ever seen" in the next 30 days. The "major" breakthrough was on his mind as well as a $1.5 billion financing deal, reaching a valuation of $39.5 billion, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.
The AI model in question was mentioned a few days later with "Helix", a "vision-language-action" model to bring its robots' reasoning closer to that of humans. Which, according to Figure AI, opens its robots to new tasks of sorting small parcels for logistics companies, "a task previously impossible to solve with traditional robotic techniques," wrote the startup on X. With Helix, Figure AI also welcomed having accelerated its development schedule by two years, and that tests would be carried out this year to integrate the new model into the humanoid robot.
Source: Fortune
0 Comments